New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
300: Unintentionally hilarious nonsense
Half Nelson: Ryan Gosling won Oscar nomination for his role as a crack addict teacher
Notorious BIG: Features some highly revealing personal accounts
Pasolini's Theorum: A scandal on its release in 1968
Dom Joly: A boozy globetrot
Bloodthirsty action in 300, an insight into the life of Notorious BIG and Dom Joly enjoys Happy Hour in the DVDs of the week.
DVD OF THE WEEK
300
Warner Home Video, 15, £23.99
***
Banned as US propaganda by the president of Iran, this bloodthirsty recreation of the Battle of Thermopylae almost sparked another war itself, apparently owing to its simplistic depiction of the ancient Persians as sexual degenerates with bad dress sense. Clearly, Mr Ahmadinejad didn't actually watch the film - a good judgment call on his part because this unintentionally hilarious nonsense has as much subtext up its sleeve as only a movie where everyone wears leather underpants would. Still, fanboy/director Zack Snyder certainly captures the look of Frank Miller's graphic novel with an innovative blend of live action and CGI, even if the airbrushed result also resembles soft metal album art from the late 1980s.
Extras: The sole reason this deserves a three-star rating. An entire extra disc heaves with special features including additional scenes and a meaty documentary on the real Spartans.
Half Nelson
Axiom Films, 15, £15.99
****
A middle-class history teacher struggling to inspire the deprived black kids in an inner-city school? The set-up here sounds cringeinducingly-like Dangerous Minds. However, the twist is that the teacher (Ryan Gosling) is a crack addict - and it's up to hardworking 13-year-old star pupil Shareeka Epps to inspire him to turn his life around. The two strike up an unlikely friendship - again, dripping with Hollywood clichÈ. But this gripping and sophisticated drama became one of the year's biggest sleeper hits as audiences wised up to its understated yet empowering message. Gosling was rightly Oscar-nominated for his emotionally complex lead role as the cynical idealist, while Epps certainly emerges as one to watch. And there's not a whiff of Michelle Pfeiffer about it.
Extras: Commentary by filmmakers, interview, Q&A, deleted and additional scenes, Sundance award-winning short Gowanus, Brooklyn. LI-Z
Notorious BIG: Bigger Than Life
Sony BMG, no cert, £9.99
****
Bigger Than Life is yet another DVD purporting to reveal the real person behind Notorious BIG, one of the most gifted and revered rappers to grace hip hop. Despite lacking any music from Biggie Smalls, it's revealing thanks to a series of highly personal accounts from the close friends who became his entourage. They chart Christopher Wallace's life from elementary schoolyard to teenage crack dealer and his rise as New York's gangsta rapper riposte to Los Angeles' outfit NWA. You get a real feel for Biggie's childhood, Jamaican family home, teenage rebelliousness, Biggie the prankster and his metamorphosis into a hip hop icon. Narrated by Big Daddy Kane, there's input from Wu Tang Clan's Method Man and Raekwon and footage of P Diddy waxing lyrical on how to market the 'fat guy with a lazy eye'.
As well as dissecting the minutiae of Biggie's 1997 murder, this delivers insight into hip hop's transformation into a mainstream industry. The lives of Biggie and rival star Tupac Shakur were arguably the price of a media-fuelled East Coast-West Coast gangsta rap feud. It's all the more poignant as it becomes clear that Biggie gave up hustling and turned to rap to avoid an early grave.
Extras: Footage of Biggie rapping in his neighbourhood, gallery.
Pasolini's Theorum
BFI DVD, 15, £19.99
*****
A handsome stranger appears at a gorgeous house in Milan, shags everyone and leaves. That's the simple set-up here. But Pier Paolo Pasolini's cool 1968 masterpiece is layered with allegorical intensity and emits an unsettling vibe.
The enigmatic guest (sexy young devil Terence Stamp) seduces the household from middle-aged maid to adolescent son via a series of psychologically super-charged encounters. Its simple framework, stripped of all but the most banal dialogue, allowed Pasolini to explore his ongoing preoccupations - intersections of class and gender - as the family's unconscious desires overwhelm their polite, bourgeois consciousness.
A scandal on release, this classic was acclaimed at the Venice Film Festival then swiftly banned in Italy on charges of obscenity - only to be later acquitted for 'high artistic value'. No arguing with that.
Extras: Lavishly illustrated booklet containing biographies, essays and reviews, interview with Stamp, commentary by Italian film expert Robert Gordon. LI-Z
Dom Joly's Happy Hour
Warner Vision UK, 15, £19.99
***
What a gig - persuading Sky TV to let you travel the world and drink. No wonder comedian/journo Dom Joly and his pal Pete Wilkins look so smug in this show. There are some real highlights in this boozy globetrot, not least in the first episode, America, where the duo drink moonshine with entertainingly incomprehensible Appalachian hillbilly Barney Barnwell and compare two Alabama Baptist ministers to the Taliban in their desire to ban alcohol. But while it's good fun and vaguely interesting, the dully executed self-referential fluff (saying goodbye to family, discussing production budget) provides some low points across these six episodes. If you like this kind of aren't-foreigners-funny lark, then Danny Wallace's How To Start Your Own Country is a better watch.
Extras: Commentary, unseen footage. Sharon Lougher
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